I’m another one around that 30 min mark.
I ran x2 marathon in 2.51 the first in 2014 the second in 2017
My best IM marathons have been 3.18 which I managed 3 times at Bolton 2015, Bolton 2019 and Barcelona 2019. Also ran a couple of 3.20s-3.22s including wales last year.
As to the question of motivation, I wonder how many of us (like me) are ex/frustrated runners.
There’s no question in my mind that I’m better suited in every way to IM but I still have an unfulfilled wish to run a sub 2.45 marathon.
I’m pretty sure this will never happen simply because my legs can’t cope with marathon training and injury inevitably arrives before the start line does. The last marathon I did was 2017. I’ve tried to train for multiple marathons since then but always end up injured after a few weeks training. This is why I ended up doing triathlon in the first place!
This year I’m down to do Bolton early July and Copenhagen 7 weeks later in August. I’m relatively confident this will be doable. However, there is no way I’d try and do an IM 7 weeks after standalone marathon which have taken me weeks to recover from in the past.
I’ll never forget trying (and failing) to run sub 3 for the first time in London 2013. I missed it by 18 seconds. That took twice as long to recover from than the 2.51 that I ran 12 months later, I remain convinced that the psychological disappointment extended the recovery time considerably.
And that’s the whole point of this topic and discussion. I Thoughts on how the objective is set.
Well, yes. Literally you can. But I was pointing out that it comes back to that risk/reward element. It’s about trying to replicate that load to then set objectives that are realistic at the time of racing.
I know you love to be all mysterious in your responses, but you know exactly what I mean.
As in running comes more naturally to me than it does with some others off less training and input. Individual differences. In the same way that if I were 6ft 8 and 110kgs I’d be a more natural second row in rugby.
I don’t mean to be negative, but I was trying to generate healthy debate and get some tips from people that are experienced to help me consider views that I’ve not come up with before. But you seem to just like persistently drawing out parts of people’s input and then just stating if you agree or not. I’d love to learn from a clearly experienced coach like yourself. You very, very rarely like to actually give anything away, instead responding like some sort of mystical guru awaiting your pupils to reach their own inner peace. I just don’t get it.
Lad it’s about half an hour unless you over bike dramatically your tummy turns to jelly or you are a 6ft 10 19 stone rugby player.
You might be an exception being such a fast runner and “ good steady “ cyclist.
I’m sure you will do well at Wales … 3:20 run?
Lol
Honestly GB, if you’ve ever seen me on a bike you know I’m not a ‘natural cyclist’.
I think we all know what you mean by your comment….
So, let’s deal with this first…
No, i haven’t got a clue what you intended this term to mean.
As a coaching term, it is generally used by coaches who are too lazy to examine the circumstances being hidden by the term and in athletes it is generally used by athletes who are unwilling to put their coaches and various authors under pressure to justify its use.
Does it refer to how the athlete’s movement appears? To their biomechanical efficiency? To their physiological efficiency? To their performance? To their response to training? To their response to coaching?
As an example…a runner may well be said to have a natural cadence of say 160 spm. There may be a benefit to developing a faster cadence and, in time, that runner’s cadence may increase to 180 spm. Is that a natural cadence or an unnatural one or was the original cadence unnatural all along?
A shockingly lazy term.
Yes there are certainly some traits that lend themselves towards certain abilities but you generally find, with a few exceptions, that those who apply themselves appropriately become reasonably competent at most skills.
Tip 1:
Tip 2:
Debate point 1: you replied to this
refer back to tip 1:
Debate point 2:
Tip 3:
Refer back to point 1:
Tip 4:
Tip 5:
Debate point 3:
Tip 6:
Debate point 4:
these two together make Tip 7, but in part they refer back to Tip 1:
Tip 8:
Tip 9 although possibly Debate point 5:
Tip 10:
Tip 11:
Joke 1:
Not a bad afternoon of freebies…
As per the post above, if i disagree with a comment or believe i can add value to a comment i will question it or add a comment, or, as you object to, try to prompt the contributor to think for themselves.
I don’t want my ‘pupils’ to find inner peace, i want them initially to find inner turmoil, to be skeptical about the guidance available and to challenge it…
Remember that 6 + 3 tip you rejected? Well, the process is tried and tested and it has worked. With just about every athlete i have ever worked with, the pacing and ultimate objective was not ‘set’ as such but evolved through the training. One of the key sessions is always a race pace brick although they rarely go that long. In this particular case, a projected 7 hour bike, 5.5 hour run for a first time IM went to 6 - 2:45 iirc but she did a longer run. From this we set a race pace, a nutrition plan and changed a couple of pieces of equipment.
I agree with the principal and did the same for majority of my long runs, just wonder if I’d do a 37km slower than RP 3 weeks out given what everyone seems to be saying about recovery cost.
Would you do the same again?
Me completely. I’ve still never done a standalone mara for this reason. Leaning towards attempting one this year to aim for 2:50, but the same idea last year of working my running (relatively low key compared to many, 1 intensity session per week) destroyed me. So I’d have to remember the goal is to get to the start line, get to the finish line, and then time is third.
It is unwise for commercial coaches to give anything away, it’s actually quite tough to earn a living, plus everything is always up for scrutiny.
However, every week i give up 10s of hours for free. For today, other than the tips that went over your head, I spent 3 hours assessing 2 coaches who have exceeded their time limit with coach ed. They should be charged an additional fee, but i value coaches who give up their time for Tri clubs.
I spent an hour preparing for a call next week to a German international athlete who i coach for free.
I spent 45 minutes discussing the Lakes to London challenge for which I gave up 5 days last autumn - for free.
I’ve planned the outline of a podcast on understanding and developing a coaching philosophy which will support the current crop of GB elite triathletes in preparation for their retirement.
And i’ve spent the best part of an hour planning for the ET Sprint tri in Madrid, for which i will give up another 5 full days and certainly 6 - 8 admin days. For free. I managed 4 races a couple of years ago, giving up in excess of 44 working days and 3 last year over about 25 days…
I have been coaching, mostly for free, since 1984…it’s not my fault that you don’t position yourself well enough to benefit from it…
Agree, in same way I recently thought about set % FTP being a slightly pointless target for IM power other than getting a vague ballpark to adjust up or down from. Likewise I’ve never done a standalone marathon to be able to guide IM pace in the way GB is looking at. But it’s a good starting point for ballpark idea that then evolves hence why GB is secretly getting excited at the prospect of putting down a 3:10 
I assume that brick is proportional to overall goal time given what you’ve said about physiological benefit/cost of such long sessions, and wouldn’t be >35km for faster runners.
also eligible for entry as joke #2 
Assumed that would be a reference to a 6+3 brick 
I thought I was following where this thread was going with @Chriswim and @stenard in the middle there- now I am somewhat lost but still seemingly learning. So sub 30 min is deemed acceptable - are we landing that it is the metabolic cost of the swim and ride the main driver (pacing and/or fitness) for drop off or is it purely a run volume. What % would you attribute either way and how close of a IM run to marathon is just leaving too much out there? Sub 20 min and I feel you just are not pushing what you should be on bike.
Last question - what do you classify as your IM run pace? The average pace of you IM run time or your running pace when moving or till piano falls on you.
Good thought provokers.
Think you’re spot on saying 20-30 (maybe up to 40 in the 4-6hr runners) is target for a good IM run, with some leeway - obviously 35 minutes isn’t disastrous by any means and might be great outcome for some who bike well.
The other way, I seem to run very well in triathlons. I’d expect to do 10k within 1-2, 1/2M +5, and would be very happy/surprised if I managed to run 25 minutes quicker than my IM splits.
Anyone care to guess what they think a top IM pro could do in a standalone? Skipper ran that solo ultra in training the other year that included a 2:29 marathon. So maybe 2:20? I assume they wouldn’t go 2:10 despite their 3:35-2:40 Ironmans.
Will come back to the rest when get chance
I think that’s why it’s a really interesting topic as we all know it’s a fine art getting it right in all three disciplines or getting to the run already done
Wasn’t Chrissie only 5-10 minutes faster at a standalone than her PB in Roth? Although she was a bit older by that point and possibly not training professionally.
Pretty sure Blu claimed sub 2:20
My take on what I think is part of your question, from my own experiences.
I’m certainly not the runner you are, but with limited run training of ~40K PW with some hills and maybe a parkrun thrown in for a hard workout I can get fairly close to PB level for races up to a half. Having said that, I’ve never done a run only training program and at nearly 53 I doubt it would end well if I did.
You are probably wanting to maximise your strength at Wales, but in reality even 3:20 on that course is a good time for an age grouper. That’s something like 4:35K’s? Running 3:30K’s in training is fun\hard and certainly improves your high end fitness but increases the recovery time and load. An odd one or two won’t hurt and will keep things fresh. But it is unlikely to improve your IM time. On that course some rolling hills might be better.
Personally, I think you’d be better off trying to get some runs on tired legs at maybe just above target race pace. A friend used to do a 2 hour long run the day after his long ride to get them used to running when fatigued.
Getting to the run with a 3:20 in the tank is the difficult bit, that really means for you that the bike is where you really need to work on. I’m not saying you are a bad biker, you’ve hung with us on a Thursday, but 6 hours in September on rolling roads is significantly different. The good news is that you can fairly easily simulate that on your doorstep.
Fuelling is the other key thing, I suspect this has really been the difference for me on the good\bad races. It’s a shame I didn’t realise about my blood sugars and have things like CGM’s when I started as it might have helped my strategy. But I’m probably fairly unique compared to some, and there’s probably not many people on here that haven’t had bad IM races for one reason or another.
Get the fuelling right and pacing\endurance on the bike and you should be able to get off with a decent run still in your legs.
Obvs I’m not a coach but I’ve picked up things over the years and can have a reasoned argument with myself 
And yeah, we’ll ignore swimming for now!
More on your ‘benchmark’ I’d say it needs to be on road and run/walk.
Run/walk - how many people have trained to the Galloway method vs simply stopping and walking a bit? It’s not exactly rocket science but there is a bit more to it than that.
The bit about “natural ability” interests me. I know it’s been done to death here over the years, but I’m in the camp who think that natural ability is a thing and a big factor in performance. GB is clearly, in my view, a natural runner. He bounces along like Tigger, even/especially up hills and flights of steps. I’ve seen it. Plus the untrained 2h50, random 17 minute parkrun etc.
Other people get on a bike and it’s like they have a hidden motor.
Perhaps there are parallels to health, where there’s some evidence that only about 50% of good outcomes are 'trainable" by good diet, not smoking, avoiding sharks and so on? In the other 50%, your genes are going to get you anyways.
Don’t know if a “natural runner”'s IM time will be closer to their standalone time though. Might even be the other way round, because 6 hours in they’re too tired to bounce 
